The Rugby World Cup

With customary pomp and hoopla, the N.F.L. staged its season opener on Thursday night: an entertaining shootout between the last two Super Bowl champions. The kickoff event drew great ratings for NBC and was broadcast in dozens of other countries. Nonetheless, for a significant portion of the globe, it is football’s ancient antecedent, rugby, which will command center stage in the coming weeks. The seventh Rugby World Cup began earlier today in New Zealand, with a high-scoring opener of its own. The host nation defeated Tonga by a score of 41-10. Over the next seven weeks, sixteen teams will play forty-seven more matches to determine the winner of the Webb Ellis trophy on October 23rd.

Though rugby is an English invention, the quadrennial tournament, which was first staged in 1987, has been dominated by teams from the southern hemisphere: Australia and South Africa have won the championship twice; New Zealand once. (England is the lone winner from north of the equator.) The balance of power has remained unchanged for this year’s tournament. The All Blacks, Wallabies, and Springboks, ranked first, second, and third in the world respectively, are once again favorites. France and the teams from the British Isles are all viable candidates to make the latter stages of the tournament—though the Kiwi press would beg to differ. The U.S., which has had a small handful of notable rugby achievements in its history, including winning gold medals at the Olympics of 1920 and 1924, is ranked 18th in the world (behind Fiji, Japan, and Georgia, among others), and would seem to have little chance to advance to the elimination round. The Eagles find themselves in Pool C, with Australia, Ireland, Italy, and Russia. Only the top two teams qualify from each pool.

For the first time in World Cup history, games will be shown on American broadcast television. NBC will televise all of the U.S. matches as well as the final on tape delay. Streaming Web and cable packages are available, too, but, for the American fan trying to keep up with the antipodean action, the best and cheapest recourse might be to locate a nearby Scottish or Irish pub crowned with a satellite dish. Failing that, there’s the free World Cup app for the iPhone and iPad.

Some intriguing storylines and subplots to keep an eye on:

War Dances: The most famous of these is the haka, which the All Blacks perform before every game. (As Amy Davidson noted in 2009, anyone who saw it in “Invicutus” won’t soon forget it.) Several other teams from the southern hemisphere, including Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji, also enact their own pre-match warrior rituals. The World Cup site has a useful guide to the dances, with translations of the chants.

Eddie O’Sullivan: The current coach of the United States team previously helmed the Irish national squad to three Triple Crowns in the Six Nations tournament, but is most remembered for a disappointing performance in the 2007 World Cup. O’Sullivan leads the Eagles against his former team on Sunday.

The French Threat: Though New Zealand is the top-ranked team in the world, it has twice been ousted from the World Cup by France. The All Blacks and Les Bleus are both in Pool D this year, and their match on September 24th promises to be one of the most entertaining of the opening round. (Some have argued that it should have been the opener.)

Three Times a Charm: Both South Africa and Australia have won the Webb Ellis trophy twice. Can either team upset the hosts and be the first to claim a hat-trick of World Cup wins?